


Counseling Session

by Waldo



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-08
Updated: 2009-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-02 20:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waldo/pseuds/Waldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Callen will talk when he needs to, just not to Nate if he can help it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counseling Session

The case was closed. Had been closed for about two hours, since they shipped Gunnery Sergeant Caleb Strand off to the LAPD for holding until he could be shipped to San Diego tomorrow morning to become JAG’s problem.

Kensi had the majority of the paperwork, since this had mostly been her case and she’d done the interrogation. Sam had stuck around to finish his own report on how he and G had run the idiot down when the BOLO had come back that he’d been seen on an amusement park security camera. So much for disappearing into the crowd.

As usual, Callen had vanished and no one was sure where he’d gotten to this time. It had become apparent early on in Kensi’s interrogation, that this case had gotten under his skin. Once Sam had printed his report, he dropped it in Hetty’s ‘in’ basket and grabbed his jacket. He ran into Nate on his way out. “Any idea where G disappeared to?” he asked as they walked. Half-way through the questioning, G had slammed his fist into the wall and stormed out of the boathouse. Nate had followed him, so Sam had hung back. He did keep half an ear out to make sure this wasn’t going to turn into one of those knock-down-dragged-out arguments when Nate decided G needed to talk and Callen decided there was no way in hell that was happening any time soon.

“Nope,” Nate told him, holding the door. “I figured if anyone would know his habits - his hideouts - it would be you.”

Sam shrugged. “I have a few ideas,” he said as they both made their way to their cars. “I’ll find him,” he promised Nate. “I almost always do.”

“Yeah, it’s the ‘almost’ part that worries me,” Nate said leaning on his car door, but he let the conversation drop and slid behind the wheel.

Sam had plan. There were four places he could usually count on finding G when he needed to get out and think. If he wasn’t at any of those four, Sam would call him. If he answered, Sam could assume that he really did just want to be alone. It was those times when he didn’t answer that it was time to worry. And to call out the troops. Fortunately they hadn’t needed to have him tracked by his phone or his car’s GPS since he’d been shot, but Sam knew that G’s reactions to personal stress weren’t likely to change any time soon.

It was a good night. He found him a thinking spot number two – the beach nearest his last hotel. Anywhere Callen landed for more than a week was bound to be near a beach.

Before Sam could say anything, Callen shifted a little against the railing he was leaning on. “Figured you’d find me eventually,” he said, not taking his eyes off the waves.

“You don’t seem to be trying too hard to hide,” Sam told him, leaning against the railing too, his arm pressed against Callen’s.

“I wasn’t,” G admitted. “I just needed to get out of there before I plastered the interrogation room with Strand’s face.”

Sam shouldered Callen lightly. “Let’s walk. You can talk.”

“You know, Nate already interrogated me,” G said as they stepped away from the boardwalk and onto the sand.

“You tell him anything?” Sam countered.

The fact that Callen couldn’t make eye contact and didn’t say anything was answer enough. Sam didn’t press. He’d long ago learned that if he gave G time, he’d eventually sort out his thoughts and let him in at least a little. And one thing being a SEAL had definitely taught him was patience.

“I just don’t understand how Strand could murder his own father,” Callen said about half a mile later. He picked up a flat piece of shell and skipped it across the surface of the waves.

“Kensi and Dom are pretty sure it was for the insurance money, so he could pay off his bookie,” Sam said, knowing that Callen already knew the motive.

Callen flopped down on the sand, far enough back to be out of the waves, close enough to continue to throw shells and rocks into them as he tried to vent his frustration. “You know, I don’t think about it much – I really don’t anymore – but… What I wouldn’t give to have just one conversation with either one of my parents, you know?”

Sam lowered himself down next to Callen. This was the one thing that was pretty much never talked about. Hetty made occasional comments, but Sam thought she got away with it because she was the closest thing G had to a mom these days, maybe ever. “How old _were_ you when … you know?” He didn’t even know the whole story. Had G’s parents been killed? Had he been taken away by the courts? Was he abandoned?

G made air quotes as he spoke, “What? When I entered ‘the system’?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. Callen had started the conversation, but was already retreating behind hostility and sarcasm. “Yeah,” he said neutrally, hoping to keep G talking.

“Two. Ish.” Callen said turning a shell over between his fingers before casting it back into the ocean.

“Ish?” Sam repeated.

“There’s no record of me being born. All I know about my mom is that they found her dead under an underpass of a heroin overdose. I was apparently wandering out into the street. So, actually they aren’t entirely sure she was my mom, but that was the cop’s best theory. They didn't exactly have DNA testing back then, and even if they had, I doubt testing a dead drug whore would have been high on their list of priorities."

“Christ, G…” Sam didn’t know what else to say. Apparently Callen didn’t know what else to say either and fell quiet, staring at the waves.

The sun was setting orange and pink against the waves when he finally spoke again. “My duffle was with her, had some of my clothes and stuff in it, so they just used it to move me from group home to foster home and back to another group home.” He looked over at Sam, squinting against the setting sun. “’Group home’ is the more civilized name for orphanage. More civilized name, not a much more civilized place…” he trailed off.

“Anyway, my mom didn’t have any ID, all they had to go on was the name on the bag. For all I know she got it from the Goodwill or a trash dumpster. But it was the name they stuck me with. Back when I was a kid I had this whole story made up about how my dad must have been in the Army or something. Maybe killed in Vietnam or… something…” He shrugged again.

Sam couldn’t help the snort that escaped. G looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “My dad was killed in a gang fight in New York when I was seven. Vietnam would have been an improvement.”

“At least you know,” Callen said quietly.

“Yeah,” Sam had to agree. “At least I know. I didn’t see him much before he died, but I knew him.”

“And your mom’s still around,” Callen added.

“Yeah, she is. And I think her offer to adopt you is still open, by the way.” It was a running joke. She’d found out that G’s parents were gone the first time they’d met, when G had helped Sam move her from New York to L.A. and she’d flippantly offered to adopt him. She offered each time Sam brought him around for dinner or the holidays.

Callen leaned back on his arms. “I really don’t think about it much,” he repeated his earlier comment. “But when I hear about psycho-kids killing their parents I just want to beat them senseless. I cannot possibly imagine that not-great parents are worse than no parents.”

Sam nodded. He wasn’t exactly sure what to say. He’d known his dad; he still had his mom. He’d always had a home, even if it was in the Queensbridge Projects. The few times they’d moved, his mom had been a constant. He suddenly understood why G was so good undercover. So good at becoming someone else.

He had no idea who he was.

They were silent until long after the sun had slipped completely behind the waves and there was a bit of chill in the air. Finally,  Sam stood up and brushed the sand off his pants. “You want to go get dinner?”

G looked up at him, frowning. “What?”

Sam gave him a slight smile. It wasn’t uncommon in quieter moments for Callen to get so far into his head that he didn’t hear a question the first time. The challenge for Sam had always been finding something that would drag him back out of that place without it making it look like that was exactly what he was doing.

“Dinner. You know, food?”

Callen skipped one more shell before standing up and brushing off the sand. “I could eat.”

“You could pay, too. You still owe me for lunch for, oh, the past _week_,” Sam challenged, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, yeah,” Callen grumbled as they made their way up the beach. When they reached Sam’s car, G leaned against the trunk and pulled out his phone. “One sec.”

Sam gave him a quizzical look, but didn’t ask.

Callen flipped his phone around to show Nate’s name and number. He covered the speaker as it rang, “I’ve found that if I don’t call to tell him I’ve calmed down he hounds me the whole next day.” He held up his hand and then pointed to the phone as it connected. “Hi Nate. I’m not suicidal or homicidal or whatever else you were worried about me being this afternoon. Uh-huh. Uh-uh. Yes, he found me. We’re going to get some dinner. So, seriously, I’m fine. Uh-huh. So, don’t start with all the not-so-subtle questions at work tomorrow, okay? I know. Later.” He climbed into the car.

“You ever tell him the stuff you just told me?” Sam asked as he backed out of his parking space.

“Nope,” Callen said, giving his friend a small smile. “Don’t plan to either.”


End file.
